New Zealand in 1999

Originally published in the Britannica Book of the Year. Presented as archival content. Learn more.

This article was originally published in the Britannica Book of the Year, an annual print publication that
provides an overview of the year’s most-notable people and events.
Unlike most articles on Britannica.com, Book of the Year articles are not reviewed and revised after their initial publication.
Rather, they are presented on the site as archival content, intended for historical reference only.

On Nov. 27, 1999, the centre-right government of New Zealand’s National Party (NP), which had become an institution over the years, was voted out of office. In the past the NP had always shouldered its way back into power soon after its occasional setbacks. This time, however, an eager centre-left Labour Party (LP) was waiting to pounce, assisted by an assortment of smaller parties. By December 10, two weeks after the voting under mixed member proportional (MMP), Labour, combined with its preelection coalition partner Alliance (a breakaway grouping of smaller parties led by former LP president Jim Anderton), had 59 seats in the 120-place single-chamber Parliament, while the NP was able to hang on to only 39 seats. Other parties winning seats were the right-wing ACT New Zealand, which was expected to support National (9 seats); the Greens, which had opted out of Alliance and had since promised money to a Labour-Alliance administration (7); the enigmatic New Zealand First (5), which had battled the NP before the previous elections but had eventually joined in coalition with them and now promised money and a vote of confidence in support of the party that polled the most votes; and one former National MP whose splinter party had come down to himself alone (1). The Labour-Alliance minority government would be dependent on the Greens’ support as well as on regular consultation with smaller allied parties.

For the first time, the leadership battle was contested by two women, with LP leader Helen Clark ultimately prevailing over NP Prime Minister Jennifer Shipley. Clark, a former health and labour minister and deputy prime minister in a previous, short-lived Labour administration, became New Zealand’s first elected woman prime minister. Shipley had been appointed to the post in December 1997 after then prime minister Jim Bolger resigned. By election day Labour and the Alliance group had shed tension but not policy differences. However, Anderton, who was named deputy prime minister, radiated goodwill that gave the coalition a stronger chance of succeeding.

Of the 20 Cabinet posts apportioned, Clark put Anderton in charge of economic development, one of four jobs that went to the coalition’s junior party. LP deputy leader Michael Cullen returned to the post of finance minister, which he had held in a previous administration; he was also made leader of the House. Foreign affairs, with Phil Goff enunciating policy, was fifth in the Cabinet, and the volatile situation in Indonesia was likely to be a key concern. The new administration signaled Labour’s intention to extract an individual tax of $NZ 0.39 on the dollar (rather than $NZ 0.33) on earnings above $NZ 60,000 ($NZ 1 = about U.S.$0.52), rewrite legislation on management-labour relations, and further adjust national superannuation. More Maori members were given Cabinet responsibilities than in previous governments.

The elections gave New Zealanders their second experience of the MMP form of proportional voting. In a referendum on limiting the number of MPs to 99 rather than 120, 81.47% of the voters approved. One problem with MMP, which produced MPs without ties to electorates or party seniority, was that a number of past MPs had deserted the colours by which they were elected and defected to another party. All of those who had done that and stood again in 1999 were rejected. Because so many of these defectors were part Maori, journalists coined the collective term waka jumpers, a reference to the fabled or actual canoes, or wakas, in which the aboriginal Maori had first arrived on the islands. Another referendum supported tougher penalties for crimes of violence.